Glam'ma and N'auntie

i.
Her honeycomb-coloured curls were maintained

at her regular hairdresser appointments

though she used pins to set the curls in between

Every day, she generously moisturized her

peony petal-pink and obsidian-smooth skin

before applying the same shade of coral pink

lipstick to her mouth and brown mascara

to her lashes, from a small flat red box with

an applicator that looked like a teensy toothbrush

Being lonely never changed her devotion to her

appearance but in front of the blue straggler stars she had

for eyes, she wore plain heavy glasses

She dressed in turtlenecks and tan coloured coats

and shoes almost exclusively, religiously wearing

a plastic hair bonnet outside when it rained

but the loud and chunky beads and baubles she wore

against her chest gave away her wild streak that turned

to venom when she drank.



ii.
She always had more smiles and kindness in her

earthen-brown eyes than sun spots or wizened lines

on her face or dough in her pocket

She had dozens of friends and family who loved her

and her cooking and her everchanging hair colour –

The follicles lost all melanin by the time she had nine

children and became a grandmother before age thirty-three

[you’re welcome, Nan]

She played card games with kids for money

watched horror movies and she loved smoking

and chocolate too much, doing both chronically

without caution , had a blithe sense of humour

evident in her laughter when mockingly asked to cook

‘fried hags and am’ and she made light of

wearing work while she stood in line to process

snow crab at the fishplant or plant potatoes on

Prince Edward Island because she went where the work was

[except when she was young and tended bar

while attempting to mother].